NEWS BRIEF: Ohio Death Row Exoneree Wiley Bridgeman Dies

Wiley Bridgeman (pic­tured, left), who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he did not com­mit, died June 27, 2021, after a long ill­ness. Bridgeman was 66. 

In 1975, Bridgeman was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death along­side his broth­er, Kwame Ajamu (pic­tured, right), and their friend, Ricky Jackson. Bridgeman once came with­in three weeks of exe­cu­tion before Ohio’s death-penal­ty law was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al in 1978. The three men were exon­er­at­ed in 2014, when a wit­ness who had tes­ti­fied against them as a teenag­er came for­ward to recant his tes­ti­mo­ny, which he said had been coerced by police.

A press release from the law firm of Friedman, Gilbert, + Gerhardstein, which rep­re­sent­ed Bridgeman, lament­ed his unre­al­ized poten­tial. ​“Before he was arrest­ed, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to death at age 20, for a crime he did not com­mit, he had a promis­ing future that was cut short by a mali­cious and fab­ri­cat­ed pros­e­cu­tion,” the firm wrote. ​“After serv­ing his coun­try in the National Guard, Wiley aspired to be a lawyer because of his extra­or­di­nary intel­lect. Instead, he lan­guished on death row for three years before the Ohio Death Penalty in 1978 was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and then served the remain­der of his time under a life sen­tence before he was exonerated.” 

After his exon­er­a­tion, Bridgeman became a poet, pub­lish­ing a book of poet­ry titled, ​“It’s A Something I Missed to Tell You.” 

“He still man­aged to be a very encour­ag­ing, very intel­lec­tu­al, very bright star,” Ajamu told Cleveland​.com. ​“They did not put his fire out, although they dimmed a lot of light.”